Grimstone
While I am not a fan of Power Core Combiners, this caught my attention due to the Dinobots relation. In fact I was such as non-fan of PCC’s that it wasn’t until I got the Grimstone release that I realized that these sets were comprised of one main robot and a bunch of drone vehicles or animals in Grimstone’s case. I always assumed they were all made up of vehicles that individually transformed into robots that combine to form an even bigger robot.
Grimstone comes in the usual PCC box that displays the figures in a separated fashion.
Before I get to the main robot, I will start with the drones so I have something good to talk about in the end. I don’t get this whole drone thing. I would have preferred having these be able to turn into robots individually.
Here we have Parasaurolophus . He makes up one of Grimstone’s arms. He has ball jointed T-Rex style mini hands which is the only articulated part of this figure.
Here is Spinosaurus. He makes up Grimstone’s other arm. This one however actually has two points of articulation. His tail swings up and down (for transformation purposes) and his mouth opens.
This is Ankylosaurus who makes up one of the legs. Again, this super limited in its articulation. Legs do not move at all aside from the movement required for transformation.
Here is Pachycephalosaurus who makes up his other leg. His only articulation is his hands which move together up and down. You can kind of fake some articulation by moving his tail that in turn makes his head bob up and down.
Although very limited in their articulation, the engineering thrown into their design is pretty neat. So how can such in-articulated figures have such engineering? Well, these are made to automatically transform when plugged into the main robot using Automorph Technology. The act of connecting them to the main robot, sets forth an automatic transformation into their limb modes.
The Commander robot is known as Grimstone is actually the best part of the whole package. Hasbro lists him as a Triceratops, although dinosaur guys will argue that he is a Styracosaurus. This is by far the best dinosaur mode of the bunch. You can actually move its limbs,
His robot ,mode although on the stubby side is also pretty cool especially after dealing with the boring drones for the past few minutes.
When Grimstone combines with the Dinobot drones, you are left with, well…Grimstone with Dinobots. He looks like a Taco Bell kitchen exploded on him.
It’s a very busy-looking figure to say the least. I am not a fan at all of weird, highly asymmetrical combiners that just make the eyes wander aimlessly across different parts of the figure, but I think I’ll keep this in my collection for now, if only for the fact that they are Dinobots. Otherwise, not necessarily a must have.